Stupid reporter. There was no fecal contamination. There was fecal coliform bacteria contamination. These bacteria are all over our skin. Yes they come out of our butthole, but they don't just hang out there. There are more bacterial cells in the human boty than there are human cells. We literally team with life.

Grammatik Polizei:Also, they should have swabbed the tables, door knobs, menus, etc. I bet they would have found coliform bacteria on most things.

Yup. The stuff is everywhere. It's also almost always completely harmless. In fact the only reason we pay attention to it is because if you have large concentrations, it can be an indicator that more expensive tests are needed to tell if there is something really dangerous there.

Having worked in a restaurant, how often do you think they clean the iced tea tub?

Hint: almost never.

-Well, they'll throw some soap in it, but good luck them actually disassembling the nozzle and scrubbing it out. The first night I had dish duty, I did that... I'm fairly certain I was the first person to clean that thing in several years.

SinisterDexter:blatz514: If you put enough alcohol in your soda; ya got no problems

I don't know what I'm talking about, but from what I've read; most drinking alcohol won't do it. It needs to be 70-80% concentration to effectively kill germs. If you're drinking Bacardi 151, you might accomplish something, but you'd be diluting it with your mixer. Better to drink the alcohol straight and skip the mixer. Who needs the empty calories, anyway?

It's more like 70-80 proof, which is 35-40%. Vodak: is there anything it can't do?

More seriously, although the comment about fecal bacteria being all over our skin is true, employees are supposed to be washing their hands before working with this equipment, so the bacteria shouldn't be getting into the pipes. I'm not a germophobe by any stretch of the imagination; the overuse of antibacterials has done a lot of harm to us as a society. But they do have their place, and food-handling is part of that.